{"id":693644,"date":"2026-01-13T18:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/693644\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T18:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:09:13","slug":"scotstoun-can-be-key-in-glasgows-euro-run-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/693644\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotstoun can be key in Glasgow&#8217;s Euro run &#8211; Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Ollie Smith believes home advantage can be key in Glasgow Warriors going deep into this season&#8217;s Champions Cup, and says Scotstoun is a venue opposition teams &#8220;hate&#8221;.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Warriors face Saracens on Sunday with their place in the round of 16 already secured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Glasgow&#8217;s previous home game in the competition was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cq60vg3118po\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">epic comeback victory over Toulouse<\/a> last month, and with away bonus-point wins against Sale and Clermont Auvergne also banked, Franco Smith&#8217;s side are in a fantastic position to go further in the Champions Cup than they ever have before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A win over Sarries could earn Glasgow &#8211; who never never progressed beyond the last eight &#8211; a top seeding that would ensure a route of home ties right through to a potential semi-final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is probably one of the hardest places to come, mentally, I would say,&#8221; full-back Smith said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve spoken to obviously a lot of guys in camp, and they talk about how they hate coming to Scotstoun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The rubber pitch, it&#8217;s usually windy, it&#8217;s usually wet, but I think when that&#8217;s your own stadium and you&#8217;ve got your own fans in here and it can get a bit hostile, like in the Toulouse game, I think it gives you a bit more grit, you kind of become a bit more steely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You think about this place being your place, and you know how much they hate being here and how much you love being here because it&#8217;s your place and you&#8217;re not going to let them get anything easier when they come into your house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So it&#8217;s a bit of pride in that way, and that just kind of comes down to our philosophy that we&#8217;ve instilled in our group.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ollie Smith believes home advantage can be key in Glasgow Warriors going deep into this season&#8217;s Champions Cup,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-693644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}